UPDATED, Monday 1:44 PM: Despite being given an A- CinemaScore and kudos from critics, Star Trek Beyondfor its opening weekend did not go where no film has gone before and there is a question about how far this film my fall in its second weekend when Jason Bourne comes into the marketplace and competes for similar demos. With the amount of advanced ticket sales and front-loaded business, it appears that its fan base — the Trekkies — showed up for this over-$185M budgeted film. Meanwhile Lights Out electrified its core audience and has already turned a profit in its first weekend with a big $21.6M on a budget of only about $5M (plus distribution/marketing costs).

Ice Age: Collision Course‘s opening was tepid, but its global total is pushing it past Shrek to become the best grossing animated franchise in the business. With a strong overseas presence, it will pass the $200M mark globally today. Ghostbusters fell 54% in its second weekend and has another female-driven comedy coming in to kick it around this weekend with Bad Moms. It’s global cume so far is only $122.4M. No Cinderella story domestically but still has a long way to go in major markets overseas.

UPCOMING: Audiences will be treated to the next installment of the franchise Jason Bourne from Universal which brings Matt Damon back into the role and reunites him with director Paul Greengrass. Damon stars with Alicia Vikander, Julia Stiles and Tommy Lee Jones. In addition, STX Entertainment is unleashing the female-driven comedy Bad Moms into the theaters. Given that there is an overlap of female audience, Lionsgate is trying to get the jump on that demo and putting its film Nerve out in previews tomorrow for a Wednesday opening. Nerve is about an online truth or dare video game that becomes increasingly dangerous. All three bow day and date with an international push (albeit Nerve will release in only a smattering of small markets).

UPDATED, Sunday AM: After a fantastic Saturday that was off just -7% from Friday, Paramount/Skydance/Bad Robot’s Star Trek Beyondis accelerating toward a $59.6M weekend. Before the Independence Day holiday, when Star Trek Beyond hit the tracking boards, analysts had a keen sense that the threequel could hit these numbers, which on a three-day basis are the third best ever for a Star Trek movie, and it was always destined to outstrip Ghostbusters (which declined -53% with $21.6M in a photo-finish for third place with New Line/Warner Bros.’ Lights Out).

In regards to the opening, Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore beamed “That opening is better than Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation last year ($55.5M) and Star Trek Beyond is playing similar to that film”.

Even though the opening for Star Trek Beyondis off from the opening of its predecessor Star Trek Into Darkness ($70.9M) on a three-day basis, the film is bound to profit or break-even, particularly when overseas has been factored in. This Star Trek voyage’s production budget is over $185M; Into Darkness which cost an approximate $190M, and that film, per industry finance sources, turned a near $30M profit after global theatrical rentals, home entertainment and TV streams were tabulated. As we’ve mentioned, the best overseas grosses attained in the Star Trek franchise were with the Skydance/Bad Robot movies, which raised the international B.O. between 2009 and 2013 from $128M to $238.6M. In China, the grosses grew between Star Trek and Into Darkness from $9M to $57M. Latin America also boomed.

Also, as far as any slide stateside for Star Trek, we also have to take into consideration the tough market that sequels have faced. Outside of those sequels that bested their predecessors, i.e. Finding Dory and The Purge: Election Year, Star Trek Beyond (off 14% from Into Darkness) is one of the better holds for a sequel this summer.

In the last two months, Paramount pulled out the stops in promotion. They spotlighted Rihanna as a Trekkie fan, who then provided the song “Sledgehammer” to the movie and drew 1.2B Twitter impressions, hosted a huge Comic-Con world premiere which generated social buzz, and had $75M in TV, digital and social media support from an array of brand partners. There was a partnership with Atom tickets, and on Snapchat, Star Trek was one of the first partners to run ads on people’s own stories. There was a May Star Trek fan event on the Paramount lot where they dropped exclusive footage and a new trailer. A 360 custom promotion with ESPN centered around the home run derby, which entailed baseballs attacking the Enterprise.

Star Trek Beyond is further fueled this weekend by an A- CinemaScore, 84% Rotten Tomatoes score, a healthy 67% PostTrak definite recommend (Finding Dory‘s word of mouth was in the 70% range) and 387 Imax theaters which grossed $8.7M. Four out of Star Trek Beyond‘s five top five locations were Imax.

New Line/Warner Bros.’ genre cash cow Lights Out, fueled by the James Wan brand, is counting $21.6M in third place off a thrifty estimated $5M production cost. While the Wan name brings a lot of wattage to Lights Out, producer Lawrence Grey gets props here for shepherding this title from a short to a long-form feature with the project’s original director David F. Sandberg intact. Pic earned an overall B CinemaScore, B+ among the under 18-set. Young females (surprise, right?) made a date for this PG-13 film at 54% women, 74% under 25.

New Line/Warner Bros. began showing off Lights Out at WonderCon with a cast panel, and an event screening at VidCon. In reaching the digital horror-phile sphere, Sandberg and his wife/actress Lotta Losten held master classes for a handful of genre filmmakers at YouTube Spaces NYC, with their shorts launched prior to Lights Out debut. It was all about the filmmakers sharing their journey from small screen to big screen, and how YouTube gave them the ability to find an audience for their creative short films. Warner Bros. created several rolling scare booths which gave users across the country the terrifying fear of meeting the film’s character Diana in a completely darkened space. These large impact booths toured the country with current installations at LA LIVE in Los Angeles, and PETCO PARK as part of the CONIVAL Comic-Con activities in San Diego.

20th Century Fox was able to push Blue Sky’s Ice Age: Collision Course‘s opening past the $20M with $21M. Saturday was -4% from Friday’s $7.8M. It’s a tired franchise here in the states, but overseas it’s still gold with the last two Ice Age titles grossing in excess of $690M. Further case in point: With Collision Course’s global weekend, it pushes Ice Age to $3 billion, making it the highest grossing animated franchise. And it’s in a market with adult-skewing ‘five-quadrant’ animated features like Finding Dory and The Secret Life of Pets, which between the two made $36.5M. However, there’s still a lot of summer left, and Ice Age 5 is the last kids’ film in the market. Big multiple on the horizon. Moms took their kids: 57% females turned up with 60% under 25.

UPDATED, Saturday, 7:52 AM: Paramount/Skydance/Bad Robot’s Star Trek Beyond lost some ground in estimates this morning as it seems this film is not crossing to audiences past its fan base (advanced ticket sales) and may end the weekend below around $56M and change after a $22.3M Friday (that includes the $5.5M from previews). However, Paramount is the only one in town right now still thinking their baby will hit $60M this weekend. For a deeper analysis of why Star Trek is off domestically, see Anthony D’Alessandro’s Friday story (below). The film travels into 37 international markets this weekend to boost the box office of this $185M (plus distribution and advertising costs) budgeted sci-fi fan favorite. It doesn’t hit China until Sept. 2.

Warner Bros./New Line Cinema is seeing a nice performance and CinemaScore for its horror entry Lights Out, a $5M production (plus costs) that has scared up over $20M already. This one will turn a tidy profit. Thanks to the James Wan branding (he produced), it shows the marketing power of a name. Also working to its advantage, it’s rated PG-13.

Universal/Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets, in its third weekend, held off Fox/Blue Sky’s Ice Age: Collision Course from overtaking it. Ice Age skews young so will see its core audience turn out today and tomorrow, which might pick up grosses a bit, but the fifth installment of the animated family franchise will come in around $20M to $22M — about 55% off from the last one domestically. This picture has already opened overseas with a significant promotional push across many countries and, so far, is doing well, so the animated film should make up abroad what it lacks here. This is a franchise that has been around for 14 long years and has done well for the studio but murmurs of “straight to DVD and Blu Ray” comes to mind for any next installment.

Ghostbusters is not gonna call fall more than 60% as many predicted, but it will come close. The second weekend of the Sony hoped-for new franchise will drop between 55% and 57%. While that is not great, it’s not as scary as it could have been, meaning that audiences are still buying tickets (mid-week numbers weren’t bad). It will hit $100M eventually, but after this three-day, the reboot will be at $85M after two weekends in release. Kinda says it all, no?

We should be used to Indian titles coming out of nowhere by now to step into the Top Ten, and such was the case this weekend with the Indian-Tamil language gangster film Kabali. After a solid $2.7K Friday night performance in only 250 runs, it’s looking at a phenomenal $20K or more per screen average this weekend and a No. 8 spot.

That’s a snapshot with the No. 3, 4 and 5 spots very, very close so today and tonight should determine how it all shakes out. Here’s the chart:

That’s a decent result, and the third best bow out of the Skydance/Bad Robot Star Trek series, however, the Justin Lin-directed film is 14% off the opening of its second installment, Star Trek Into Darkness which debuted to $70.9M.

That too is not a bad drop for a sequel’s three-day, especially in a summer where such films like Alice Through the Looking Glass and Neighbors: Sorority Rising are respectively off 77% and 56% in their openings from their previous chapters.

But still we can’t ignore the fact that Star Trek Beyond’s opening is down $10.6M from its 2013 outing, which was $9M off the 2009 reboot’s debut ($79.2M). Even though we don’t need to ring the ER alarm and declare that the franchise is in jeopardy, it’s still worth analyzing why this threequel has eased.

Already Paramount has given a vote of confidence in the Star Trek franchise and greenlighted a fourth sequel with the entire reboot cast and a script by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. However, no word whether Lin is returning yet.

In the Star Trek cinematic canon, it’s par for the course to have its openings jump up and down. Just when it looked like Star Trek movies (with the original 1966 cast) might be out of touch with audiences in the mid 1980s, particularly with a revamped TV series Star Trek The Next Generation hitting the airwaves, along came 1986’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home with its then- present-day earth backdrop and humpback whale environmental themes. The pic breathed new life into the franchise, and turned around the best gross for a Star Trek sequel ever at the time with $109.7M at the domestic box office. Voyage Home held that record for 23 years until it was unseated by J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek reboot which earned the series all-time high of $257.7M. But you know when a Star Trek sequel is definitely in trouble when it posts a disastrous final cume, i.e. 1989’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier ($52.2M) and 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis ($43.3M).

At a production cost of $185M, which is a tad lower than the $190M spent on Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond will be fine in the end, particularly since the Skydance/Bad Robot series has spiked the franchise’s appeal overseas, moving its international B.O. from $128M to $238.6M. In addition, Paramount received $75 million in TV, digital, and social media promotional support from U.S. brand partners: Hewlett Packard Enterprise, VIZIO, Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans, Bing, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Eastern Airlines provided a 737 Star Trek Beyond branded plane to jet the cast to the world premiere in San Diego.

So, why did Star Trek Beyond, loaded with an A- CinemaScore (versus the first two titles’ As) and a Rotten Tomatoes score of 85%, slow down?

Despite bringing the gifted Fast & Furious director Justin Lin on board, some rivals believe that Star Trek Beyond looked same old-same old in its promos and trailers, while others think that Paramount didn’t get the great word of mouth out until quite late, topped off by an emotional world premiere at San Diego Comic-Con, which honored the memories of late actors Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin.

Paramount did try to distinguish Star Trek Beyond from its previous two chapters when they dropped the teaser back in December 2015. “We got no ship,” exclaims Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk in the trailer. The Enterprise gets destroyed, and the crew is scattered.

But for Star Trek fans, haven’t we seen this all before? Arguably the Enterprise gets decimated at least two times in the Star Trek cinematic canon.

And with other studios tubthumping their mega franchises a year or more in advance (take your pick: Warner Bros. with Suicide Squad at last year’s Comic-Con, and Batman v. Superman at the last two Comic-Cons), Paramount, when compared to its competition, was late in stoking the fans about Star Trek Beyond. If a studio is going to expand the fanbase of a franchise, it’s never too early to get the word out. Paramount skipped Comic-Con last year with any type of major tubthumping for Star Trek Beyond. Four weeks ago, Paramount went after the female demo by attaching Rihanna to the film with her pop song “Sledgehammer” (a marketing stunt that drew 1.2 billion impressions across Twitter).

What also didn’t help Paramount in the distribution/exhibition community was when they opted out of showing any footage from Star Trek Beyond at Cinema-Con. That move prompted some gossip among rival distribution chiefs, who suspected that something was wrong with the film and buzzed about the pic’s production delay.

Paramount claims it had a plan: In May, the studio threw a fan event on the Melrose lot, and showed off a new trailer and exclusive footage. Even though that was two months out, shouldn’t they have hosted the event six months sooner during the 50th anniversary year of the franchise? Disney just threw its Star Wars Celebration in London with a big spotlight on its prequel Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and that doesn’t come out until December.

Another quandary was whether director Justin Lin’s Fast and Furious fans came out for this Star Trek tonight.“Instead of calling it Star Trek Beyond, they should have added Fast and Furious to the title,” snarked one major studio distribution chief. However, the statistical evidence tonight showed that a decent portion of moviegoers did in fact come out because they’re Lin fans. Ten percent of all CinemaScore audiences cited Lin as the reason why they came out for Star Trek Beyond and gave the film an A. That’s not far from the number of people who cited J.J. Abrams as the main reason why they bought tickets to Star Trek Into Darkness (11%). Furthermore, Lin’s 10% CinemaScore beats his appeal score earned on Fast Five (5%), and Furious 7 (7%) and it’s just under Fast and Furious 6 (11%). ComScore PostTrak crowds at 12% cited Lin as the reason why they bought tickets, while 51% said they attended Star Trek Beyond because it’s part of a franchise they love. Overall PostTrak score for Star Trek Beyond is a healthy 83% total positive with a very good word of mouth recommendation of 67%.

Another film that’s overperforming at the box office is New Line/Warner Bros. $5M horror film Lights Out, which is besting its mid-teen projections with a $20.1M opening in fourth place. Even though this film was shepherded by Lawrence Grey, having James Wan’s name attached is like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval to horror fans. Wan knows what’s excellent and in this day and age when he has films like The Conjuring 2 catapulting its franchise toward $900M worldwide, he doesn’t attach his name to schlock. Whatever Wan endorses, his fans trust. Lights Out gets a B CinemaScore tonight, which is a high mark for a genre pick, on par with another Wan production, Annabelle ($37.1M opening,a 2.3x multiple of $84.3M final domestic),and his directorial Insidious ($13.3M, $54M final, a 4x multiple). Warner Bros. sneaked Lights Out at San Diego Comic-Con at 10PM on Wednesday following the Star Trek Beyond premiere. RelishMix noticed that there was strong social conversation for a horror film. People were intrigued by the high concept, with the original trailer drawing 90K views a day, and the second earning 20K a day with a viral rate for trailers of 9:1 (which is very good for a genre pic).

The big domestic bomb this weekend is 20th Century Fox/Blue Sky’s Ice Age: Collision Course with an estimated $105M pricetag and an estimated opening of $18.5M, the lowest debut in the five-film series. But come on, it’s obvious that the Ice Age series has grown long in the tooth, and this pre-historic animal is trying to get a bone in an arena where The Secret Life of Pets and Finding Dory are eating up all the chow. Just looking at the CinemaScores tells you that U.S. audiences have tired of Ice Age: The fifthquelearned a B+, the lowest in the series which has thawed from an A for the first two movies, to an A- for parts three and four. Why did Fox and Blue Sky make another one? Because the last two Ice Age movies grossed over $690M respectively, making 78% to 82% of their global B.O. hauls abroad. To date, Collision Course has grossed a great $127M overseas. Collision Course opened with the largest promotional push in its 14-year history as Anita Busch detailed earlier today.

UPDATED, 7:52 AM and 12:35 PM WRITETHRU: While Paramount’s Star Trek Beyond noon estimates show a three-day gross right now of $55M to $60M+, Warner Bros/New Line Cinema’s Lights Out already is turning audiences on with a new three-day estimate of $18M to $21M — way up above what early tracking showed. And the movie isn’t even before the horror crowd, yet which traditionally shows up late Friday night. Meanwhile, Ice Age: Collision Course may end up around $22M for the weekend, however, its core family audience won’t really show up until tomorrow and Sunday. That’s what it looks like so far but it’s quite early.

In the meantime, Star Trek Beyond nabbed a big $5.5M last night in previews for Paramount, besting the $2M that its comp Star Trek Into Darkness grabbed in May of 2013 when it opened on a Wednesday before it ended its weekend with a total of $70.1M. Beyond, a well-reviewed film and fan favorite with 87% on Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, opened at 6 PM in 3,100 locations. Of that $5.5M, the film grossed $1.1M on 387 Imax screens which is a better than average share of a Thursday night preview. Noon estimates are that this one may gross $57M+ with a shot at $60M.

Point of comparison, in November of last year Spectre took in $5.25M in its late nights before ending its three-day weekend with $70.4M.

Star Trek Beyond enjoyed its world premiere at Comic-Con this year and today releases into 37 overseas markets including the U.K., Australia, Russia, Germany and Italy and we’ll report grosses as we receive them. The third installment of the Skydance/Bad Robot franchise won’t bow into the all-important market of China until Sept. 2.

Domestically, Star Trek Beyond’s three-day gross was expected to come in behind Star Trek Into Darkness ($70.1M) — a film that released the same time that the universally panned Star Trek The Video Game came out, something that Into Darkness producer J.J. Abrams blamed as one of the reasons that the film didn’t do better at the box office.

In terms of social media, Star Trek Beyond has a strong Social Media Universe of 191M. The third installment breaks down as 27.1M Facebook fans, 26.2M Twitter followers, about 3M Instagram followers, and over 134.7M YouTube views. According to RelishMix, the film is benefiting from YouTube views from earlier installments in the series. The official trailer is getting 20K to 30K views daily, but daily view counts for most videos for Beyond are rather light, in the 10K to 25K range. The earned-owned ratio of 7:1 is also good, but not great. The addition, they say that Rihanna’s music video has been a spark plug, adding 20M views since June, 30th. And, the cast is engaged from Simon Pegg (7.9M fans and followers) to Zachary Quinto to Zoe Saldana, which is good news beyond its big Comic-Con presence.

For Star Trek Beyond, it’s a bit different. Part of the reason the film was moved to this July was to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the TV series. There are numerous promotions and even Barbie Dolls being sold specific to the 50th which encompasses members of the original cast.

In fact, as of Thursday afternoon, the #StarTrek, #StarTrekMovie, #StarTrekBeyond, #StarTrekPremiere and other related hashtags really started taking off more than doubling the amount of activity from yesterday morning.

UPDATE, 7:05 AM: While we wait for Star Trek Beyond late night grosses, we have grosses this AM so far on the two other films opening this weekend: Fox’s Ice Age: Collision Course (see below) and the latest horror offering from Warner Bros./New Line Cinema’s Lights Out. The PG-13 Lights Out previewed to $1.8M in its shows that began at 7 PM last night.

The studio is using the James Wan name to help promote the film as he is a producer on it. While Wan’s Conjuring 2 made $3.4M in previews (in 2,700 theaters) and went onto gross $40.4M in its three-day, of course that was a well-known brand. Warner Bros. also handled it. It’s not the best comp. More comparable is The Shallows $1.325M in previews and then went onto gross $16.8M opening weekend.

PREVIOUS, 6:53 AM: Fox’s next installment of the beloved Ice Age franchise — Ice Age: Collision Course — slid into previews last night and grossed $850K in 2,858 locales. Since there were no previews on Ice Age: Continental Drift when it opened in July of 2012, the best comp the studio said it is looking at for the weekend is the 2013 non-sequel Turbo, which had an opening weekend of $21.3M. Ice Age: Collision Course opened at 5 PM yesterday which is basically a half a day of grosses. This movie won’t truly kick in until the weekend when its core family audience comes out in force. The last Ice Age: Continental Drift opened to $46.6M; this one — the fifth in the franchise and opening with kid-friendly competitor The Secret Life of Pets still playing — may open around $30M to $35M.

The younger-skewing Ice Age: Collision Course has already opened overseas in most major markets, but gets its South Korean bow this weekend. So far, it has grossed over $148M in 59 foreign territories. China doesn’t come until Aug. 23rd, one of six markets yet to open.

It’s a Simon Pegg weekend as he not only was one of the writers of Star Trek Beyond — the Thursday night preview grosses of which we are waiting on from Paramount — but also voicing the character of Buck inIce Age: Collison Course. Not a mention of the animated film as he is solely concentrated on Star Trek on social media.

Meanwhile, Ice Age: Collision Course has a strong Social Media Universe of 560M, which is composed of 105.6M Facebook fans, 70.5M Twitter followers, more than 52M Instagram followers and 332M YouTube views. RelishMix notes that Any SMU over half a billion is solid, however, many of the 332M YouTube views are credited to previous films in the series. Also clips featuring characters like Scrat doing his “Shuffle” continue to contribute to the effort, despite their age – Scrat’s Shuffle has over 28M views alone. Top trailers for Collision Course are getting 30K views daily, but most of the film’s clips are receiving closer to 5K daily views.

The lack of notable materials, moderate cast activation and conversation reflects the status of Collision Course as a fifth in the franchise. But, gotta give kudos to Jennifer Lopez who lends her voice to the character Shira. Lopez was featured in the last Ice Age, Continental Drift as well and while she has a lot going on between Vegas and her TV projects, she is still posting images of herself on the red carpet for this latest Ice Age installment, like a social-pro, delighting her 130M plus fans and followers. Others, not so much, if at all.

This fifth in a franchise rolls into the nation’s theaters with a major promotional push behind it, which is impressive.